The Care and Taming of a Rogue (11 page)

“Is it? I don’t actually care.”

“It’s because you’ve been away for so—”

He reached out and grabbed her wrist. “No. It’s not. I’ve danced with two dozen chits since I’ve returned. I’ve chatted—if that’s what it’s called—with fifty more. You’re the one I kissed.”

“But you can’t simply ruin me,” she returned, her voice squeaking a little.

She pulled her arm free and walked forward to roll her bowl. This time her aim was terrible. Then it was his turn. With barely a look he tossed the green bowl out onto the grass and moved up even with her again. “That’s all that troubles you? That I not ruin you?”

“That’s not what I mean.” She scowled. “You…the…there are steps. And rules. You haven’t even said anything nice to me, except that you liked my laugh. And now you want to…well, you know.”

“Steps.”

“You said you were after me. Just for…intercourse? That’s not very flattering.”

“I beg to differ, but I don’t like to waste time. Courtship is overrated.”

“To whom?” she demanded. “I’ve never been courted, so I couldn’t say, myself. And if you’re not interested in seeing me unless I’m naked, then I seem to have wasted a great deal of conversation with someone I admired.”

“You admire m—”

“I’ve spent time, you know, imagining what it would be like to talk to the great Bennett Wolfe. He would be suave and charming and witty. He wouldn’t after four days say, ‘I want to see you naked,’” she went on, doing a poor imitation of his voice, “and then say that spending time getting to know me is overrated.”

He glared at her. She might as well have thrown cold water on him. This wasn’t about being back in London for a few days, or even about being practically alone in the jungle for three years. This was about her. And he’d clearly stepped into a very large pile of elephant shit in telling her that. “I’m going now,” he announced, turning to face the rest of the bowlers. “I have an engagement.”

“You do?” Jack asked, looking perturbed.

“Yes. You may as well stay here, because you’re not invited.” He glanced back at Phillipa’s confused, hurt expression. “Good day.”

“We’ll see you tonight, for our dinner,” Olivia called after him.

“Seven o’clock,” he returned, collecting Kero and returning to Jupiter.

“And please bring the monkey!”

Yes, everyone liked the monkey. He kicked Jupiter in the ribs, and they galloped out of the park. He didn’t have a particular destination in mind, but he did feel in the mood to be surly—which, given the restrictions he had to place on his own behavior, left him with only one place he could go. Other than back to Africa, which he couldn’t do at the moment, either.

Ten minutes later he stepped down and tossed Jupiter’s reins to a liveried groom at Ainsley House. Kero loosened her grip on his cravat and clambered down the length of him to pull a peanut from his pocket. Bennett walked along the front of the house to the second, vine-obscured entrance.

He pulled the small key from his pocket and unlocked the door, then stepped inside. “Hervey,” he said, greeting the dark-clothed servant walking toward him.

“Captain. Make yourself comfortable. Is there anything you require?”

“A glass of whiskey, if you please.” Barely noontime or not, he wanted a damned drink.

“Very good.” Hervey turned away.

“Hervey, is Sommerset about?”

The servant paused. “I haven’t seen His Grace today, Captain. Should I inquire?”

Bennett shook his head. “No. That’s not necessary.” While he wanted to know whether Lord Thrushell had yet been able to bully his way onto the Africa Association board, there remained nothing he could do about it. For the moment, anyway.

“Well, if it ain’t the man with the monkey!” Thomas Easton waved from halfway across the room.

Ignoring both the comment and the sarcasm in the man’s voice, Bennett took a seat close to the shelves of books. Three other men had taken refuge in the Adventurers’ Club this afternoon, though Easton was the only one he recognized. That suited him; he wasn’t in the mood for conversation, witty or otherwise. Not even from men who had an understanding of what the devil they’d all mired themselves in, coming back to London.

The chair opposite him pulled out, and Easton took a seat. “Finished Langley’s book,” he said, draining a mug of beer and gesturing Hervey to bring him another. “What I can’t figure is why you got the Sommerset royal invitation to join this little club, while Captain Langley didn’t.”

“Bugger off.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Easton chuckled. “At least people know where you went. I mean, whether you bungled it or not, you did survive the Congo. No one knows what I was up to.”

“I don’t care.” Bennett took the glass Hervey handed him.

“Ah.” Easton sat forward. “But if you ever attended a ball, you would. All them pretty gowns, that silk from the East. That’s because of me.”

If he’d provided the yellow silk that Phillipa had worn last night, perhaps Bennett did owe him a vote of thanks. He nodded. “Well done, then.”

“Did you know that Muslims don’t drink?” Easton pursued. “Not a damned drop of liquor. How the devil do you deal with men who don’t enjoy a good brandy in the evening?”

“I presume you’re going to tell me,” Bennett said dryly, taking a swallow of whiskey.

“Oh, I am. You don’t drink for a bloody year, and then you return to London and find a place where you can drink as much as you want, gratis.” He picked up his new mug of beer and drained half of it.

Bennett looked at him for a moment. “Was it worth it?”

“The not drinking?”

“The pretending to be a Muslim for a year.”

Easton shrugged. “I think I saved the entire social Season.”

“Then you should go and enjoy it.” Kero climbed down his arm to dip one finger into his drink. She tasted it, then snorted, flinging the remaining droplets onto the tabletop. Evidently she wasn’t a whiskey drinker.

“I enjoy it more when the chits take those damned silks off.” With a short laugh, Easton took another swallow of beer. “So now I get to see pretty gowns and I get to drink.” He slapped the flat of his hand on the table. “And in exchange, I only had to give up my God, my religion, and a half-dozen friends who thought donning Muslim attire and custom would be sacrilegious.”

“Stop whining, will you, Easton?” a tawny-haired man said from his seat at the center of the room. “You chose to stay alive. You might have chosen otherwise, and then we wouldn’t have to listen to you.”

Easton pushed to his feet. “Out there,” he snapped, pointing at the outside-leading door, “you may be an earl, Hennessy, but in here you’re another damned misfit.”

“A misfit who doesn’t whine about the misfortune of surviving.”

“Gentlemen.”

They all looked up as the Duke of Sommerset strolled into the room from the direction of the main house. He carried a riding crop and wore his beaver hat, evidently just in from or just about to go riding. Bennett eyed him. At two-and-thirty Nicholas Ainsley might be younger than half the men in the room, but he doubted very many of any age would dare take him on. Well,
he
might, but he couldn’t imagine Easton, for example, brawling with His Grace.

“Easton’s whining again,” the Earl of Hennessy stated, going back to his cigar and newspaper.

“His prerogative, I believe.” The duke shifted his gaze to Bennett. “I’m going riding. Care to join me?”

“Certainly.” A bit of action suited his mood better than listening to other men arguing, anyway. He stood, handing Kero back up to his shoulder.

“Care for more company?” Easton asked.

“No. Go pester someone else,” the duke returned without heat.

They left the club through the outside door. Jupiter and the duke’s huge black gelding waited for them. “You’re lucky I agreed,” Bennett commented, swinging into the saddle.

“I knew you’d agree. You wanted to talk with me.” Sommerset mounted the black, and led them out to the street. As Bennett drew even with him, the duke pulled a peanut from his pocket and handed it over to Kero, who clicked her teeth at him. “I assume that means I’m one of the family,” he observed.

“I thought I was the only one who carried fruits and nuts about in my pockets.”

“I have a very loud macaw upstairs who blathers all sorts of nonsensical things except when he’s eating.” Sommerset watched the monkey for a moment as she held on with one foot and one hand and shelled the peanut with the other two limbs. “That’s handy.”

“She’s hell at plucking insects off my jacket, as well.”

The duke gave a short grin, then sobered again. “Langley’s in Cornwall. He’s expected back in London by Tuesday.”

Less than a week. “Good.”

“He’s bound to know by now that you’re not dead. He may just burn the journals.”

“If he does, I’ll begin asking if he has any proof that he was in Africa at all,” Bennett returned, trying to keep his voice even when he wanted to bellow. “I, at least, have a monkey. And all my artifacts and specimens at Tesling.”

“The proof of
his
presence being in your journals.”

“Mm hm.”

“That sounds a bit sticky for Langley.”

“Good. Little liking as I have for him, I wouldn’t have abandoned him in a mud hut on some damned riverbank to die.”

“Are you going to be diplomatic about this?”

“I’m not a diplomat.”

“Bennett, you can’t—”

“That’s not why I’m here, anyway.”

Sommerset rolled his shoulders. “Enlighten me, then.”

“I need some advice.”

The duke lifted an eyebrow. “Am I your confidant now?”

“I can’t chat with my uncle, and Jack Clancy’s half convinced I eat raw meat. Which I’ve done, but I didn’t like it.”

“Very well. What is it, then?”

Now came the difficult part. “I find myself…interested in Lady Phillipa Eddison.” Obsessed with was a more accurate description, but he didn’t wish to come across like an escapee from Bedlam, or Sommerset would be advising Phillipa how best to flee from him.

His Grace shrugged. “You’re an earl’s nephew; there’s nothing unacceptable with a union.”

“You’re getting a bit ahead of things, don’t you think?” Bennett began to wish he’d finished off that glass of whiskey back in the club. “I tried approaching her, but clearly I’m less of a gentleman than she’s accustomed to.”

“What did you do that she found so unpleasant?”

“I kissed her. She seemed to enjoy that, though.”

“No sweet nothings whispered into her ear?”

“I don’t know any damned nothings. Generally chits approach me, breathe my name, and lift their skirts.”

“Ah. Did you happen to mention to Lady Phillipa that you liked her?”

“Yes. I told her that I wanted her.”

Sommerset fished out another peanut for Kero. “That’s hardly the same thing.”

“Yes, it is.” Bennett blew out his breath. “You can’t expect me to…sit in the morning room and chat about the weather with her mother, and hold her yarn while she knits, and…wait five weeks before I attempt to hold her hand.”

“It may not be life or death, my friend, but that doesn’t make a courtship unimportant. If it’s a courtship. If you’re attempting a seduction, well, pick another female. I sponsored your expedition, and you’re attempting to recover your reputation. Don’t ruin a girl from a noble family.”

“But—”

“Decide what you want. That’s my advice. And try flowers, possibly accompanied by an apology for chewing on her after five days of acquaintance.”

It had been four days before he kissed her, but he wasn’t going to admit that. “Flowers.”

“I believe in polite circles it’s referred to as a bouquet. And not one pre-dined upon by the monkey.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Do that.” The duke looked at him for a moment. “Have you ever considered, Bennett, that in trying to accomplish so much in your life, you may be missing what lies along the way? In my experience, some moments are to be savored. And not only the ones you expect. Up, Khan!” Sommerset flashed him another grin and then kneed the black into a gallop as they reached Rotten Row in Hyde Park.

Flowers. Kissing. Seduction. Courtship. Savoring—savoring what, not having her? A bloody pile of words between himself and Phillipa Eddison. If she hadn’t made it clear earlier that she found his approach insulting, he likely would have continued the path of his pursuit without a second thought. Apparently finesse was called for. And expressions of admiration. It all seemed like a waste of time when he knew so clearly what he wanted. Not easy for an uncivilized man such as himself, but he was nothing if not determined.

Chapter Nine